Environmental activists criticise Narendra Modi's book

Ahmedabad, June 22: Environmental activists have criticised Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for omission of crucial facts about the state in his book on climate change, and also challenged him for a public debate on environmental and industrial pollution in the state.

Modi's book "Convenient Action-Gujarat's Response to Challenges of Climate Change", which was released by former President A P J Abdul Kalam in December last, had selective information about Gujarat, convenient to defend the state's ''development model'', claimed the environmental activists.

"The author (Modi) of the book has conveniently ignored the level of irreversible environmental degradation in the state of Gujarat," environmental activist Rohit Prajapati, who has reviewed the book, told mediapersons here.

Prajapati also criticised chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R K Pachauri, who had released the book along with Kalam, for taking a non-serious approach towards the book.

"People like Pachauri should have come for releasing Modi''s book after reading it," Prajapati said.

He said that Modi, while writing the book has completely ignored the fact that Gujarat was one of the leading industrial states of the country and conveniently omitted certain crucial facts about industrial and environmental pollution in the state.

"It appears that the author of the book has not had a chance to visit the ''golden corridor'' of Gujarat where major chemical industries are located, and are responsible for most of the pollution in the state," Prajapati said.

The plain reading of the book gives a feeling that the author must be an outsider writing about Gujarat and the state was just began its journey in industrial development, he added.

"The author of the book has completely ignored the environmental reports by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) about the Gujarat industries. Not only this, he has not mentioned any findings of the state''s own Gujarat Ecology Commission on environmental condition in the state," Prajapati said.

Environmental activist Mahesh Pandya of Vadodara-based NGO Paryavaran Mitra said that he has sent a copy of the review of the book to Modi, while objecting to the method of calculating carbon credit mentioned in the book.

Both, Pandya and Prajapati also challenged the chief minister for a public debate on the issue of environmental concern in Gujarat.

PTI